Skin, To My Bones
by Shayegrizz
Summary: A one-shot about Alex's childhood, the very start of her badass-self. Rated M for violence


**_Okay so here's a chapter for you all, hope you like it. For a special reader of mine, thanks for inspiring me! _**

**_X0 Shay_**

Alex stood on top of the tall big toy, watching the kids play on the grounds, and wished she could join them. Watching through her over-sized glasses, she looked away quickly and pretended as if it didn't matter to her as she moved over to the monkey-bars to cross to another platform. Once the other girls were out of her line of vision she automatically felt better.

The one girl she wanted to be friends with wasn't really nice to her, so she tried her hardest to look uninterested in anything when she was in close proximity of her. She had been attending the school for four months, before Jessica Wedge became interested in her as a toy to harass whenever she could. The only time Jessica wasn't constantly calling her names and pushing her buttons was when Alex appeared to be non-existent.

The bell rang, and Alex peeked around a long wooden pole to watch the other kids go in first, and watched as Jessica and her friends started to walk towards the door and turned around the corner. Alex moved to the slide, and slid down it quickly and raced across the grounds to turn around the corner, but as she did so two pairs of hands were on her forearms, dragging her back around the corner quickly. The movement made her glasses slide down her nose and she moved to push them back on her face, but Jessica grabbed them off her face before she could do so.

Jessica laughed, throwing her glasses onto the pavement and Alex was instantly blind. Unable to see, she reflexively placed her arms out in front of her body to start searching for her glasses.

"Hey Pigsty, think your moms gunna be mad at you because your glasses are broken?" one girl Alex didn't know asked, laughing as she pushed Alex away from her, and Alex's body collided with another girl, only to be thrown back to another girl.

"Stop! I can't see!" Alex exclaimed, suddenly feeling ill, and she cowered away from the next push between the girls, tears started to well up in her eyes as she started to feel extremely frustrated that she was unable to stop what was happening to her.

"What are you gunna do, Pigsty? You gunna cry?" Alex recognized this voice, as Jessica's shrill annoying voice rang, "Gunna run home to mommy and cry? Oh right, sorry she's probably working at one of her eight jobs!"

"SHUT UP!" Alex screamed, and instead of letting the tears fall, she swallowed the ball stuck in her throat, and she placed her arms out firmly in front of her, ready to meet the next girl who would push her away. Seeing a dark blurry form in front of her before her body collided with it, she forced her eyes tightly shut and pushed before the girl could push her away.

Alex heard a gasp from a girl but couldn't make out who it was she pushed down onto the concrete and she stood still in front of the girl, completely blind and vulnerable.

"Oh, that's it Pigsty, you are so dead!" Jessica's voice rang from the ground and she heard the girl struggle to get back onto her feet.

The three other girls around her who just finished pushing her around closed in on her and Jessica rushed in at her from the side and pushed her to the ground. Alex's hip hit the concrete hard, and she moaned in pain, as she felt Jessica kick her other leg forcefully.

"Wait! Stop, Jessica, you can't do this!" Alex screamed as the other girls landed a kick to various parts of her body, and was pleasantly surprised when the girls _did _stop for a moment.

"You can't, this is fighting dirty!" Alex spat out, brows furrowing together as she crawled around on the ground in search for her discarded glasses.

"I can't see you any of you. And there's four of you, so right there that's fucking cheating!"

One of the girls in the group gasped as she heard Alex swear, and Alex rolled her eyes at this. Jessica unexpectedly kicked Alex in the stomach, obviously not caring that she was fighting dirty and Alex groaned out as the wind was knocked out of her completely. Gasping for air desperately, she gathered up all her energy and stumbled back up on her feet.

"Okay…" Alex managed to croak out, feeling the anger course through her, "Well let's do this then."

Alex brought her fists up, and searched for the nearest pink thing she could find, knowing Jessica was wearing a pink jacket that day, and the girls immaturely giggled at her.

"JESSICA!" Alex screamed, hoping she sounded intimidating enough, "LETS DO THIS! YOU AND ME!"

"I can beat you without any help," Jessica exclaimed, moving in beside Alex and Alex felt the first blow connect to her face just below her lip. She automatically felt the stinging sensation and tasted blood, but only swayed back slightly standing her ground.

Pushing herself forward with as much speed she could, she threw herself at Jessica with all her might, landing on top of her blindly, and she heard the girls head smack on the concrete. The other girls moved closer but Alex didn't hesitate, and threw her fist at Jessica's face, feeling her soft skin abruptly connect with the skin of her own knuckles.

The girl under her whimpered slightly with each blow and her friends joined in to try and drag Alex off of her. Alex wasn't having it though and roughly pushed the girls arms away and continued throwing as much damage at the girl as she could.

Two of Jessica's friends started kicking weakly at Alex's sides, but Alex barely felt them as she moved away from Jessica enough to grind her fist as hard as she could into her stomach, and the girl wheezed at every punch.

After Alex sensed the girl under her cower away from her, she weakly stumbled off Jessica and suddenly could feel the pain from the other girls kicks. Bending over to see the ground better, she looked around for her glasses, gasping for air feeling exhausted all of a sudden. A pair of larger hands grabbed her arms, but Alex pulled away roughly, not caring it was an adult or not.

"I have to find my glasses!" she exclaimed, as the hands grabbed at her, and her patience slowly webbed away.

She hated when people grabbed at her when she couldn't see anything, and now after this whole she had good reason to get defensive, but the grip of the bigger hands locked around her upper arms, and pushed her forward. Her glasses were placed over her face and she frowned furthermore as she saw large cracks in the lenses.

"_Shit_!" She muttered as she looked up behind her at the person pushing her forward through the school doors and down the hallway.

It was her teacher, Mrs. Ecker, and she tried to think of something to say to validate the situation she was currently in, but thought better of it, and she was led to the Principals Office. Alex was pushed into a chair seated across the desk from the principal and she stared at him silently.

He looked at Alex, then back to Mrs. Ecker, then back at Alex, "Who's this?"

Mrs. Ecker tapped her foot on the floor as she leaned against a cabinet and sighed, "This is Alex Vause. I just caught her beating up one of the other students."

Her tone was low, as she glared over in Alex's direction, and the principal cleared his throat to speak to Alex.

"What's your mom's number, Ms. Vause?" He asked, as he picked up the phone and prepared to dial the number. Alex started listing off four different numbers quietly before realizing at just which job her mom currently was at.

"She's working at Friendly's right now, the number is 786-863-3000," she muttered and waited through the conversation he and her mother were having. He hung up shortly after informing her she needed to come pick up Alex.

"So, Alex, what do you have to say for yourself right now?" He asked again, clearing his throat.

Alex looked the man in the eye, and bluntly spoke, "She provoked me by taking my glasses from me and throwing me around between her friends. I had no choice."

"Alex, you always have a choice. You should have came to us about this, instead of beating this other girl up," he explained and Alex rolled her eyes at this.

"Yeah well, where were you when they were throwing me around?" Alex scoffed, "I would have come to you, but I was kind of preoccupied with being a bouncy ball to Jessica and her friends."

The principal didn't know what to say to this, as Alex just sat there and waited for her mother to show up. There was a knock on the office door and Alex heard her mom tell the secretary to get out of the way.

"Alexandra Dawn Vause! What have you done?" her mom asked, looking sternly at Alex, but stopped when she saw Alex's cut bleeding lip.

"Alex, what happened?!"

"Mrs. Vause, I-"

"That's Miss Vause, sir," Alex mom corrected him not focusing on him but instead on Alex and she placed a tissue over her lip.

The principal cleared his throat, then continued, "Miss Vause, theres been an altercation between your daughter and another student," he explained, watching the woman tend to her daughter.

"I suggest it be best if you took Alex home for the rest of the day, and don't bring her back for another three days. I'm suspending her as a punishment."

"I also suggest you take your daughter to some form of therapy, or manageme-"

Alex's mom's attention snapped away from Alex, and her stare bore holes into him as she stood up straight and looked him in the eyes, pacing a few feet forward to stand over his seated form.

"Excuse me, , but my daughter would _never _do something like this without a _good fucking reason_! If you just sat and listened to her side of the story, maybe you would understand-" Alex sat back and watched silently, her mothers words were polite enough, but just seethed with venom. Alex knew this tone well, and her eyes, darted to the floor as her principal stuttered for something to say back.

"Oh nevermind, come on Al, let's go," her mother exclaimed, throwing her arm to her side, and Alex darted up out of the seat to follow her mother.

Once the two were in the car and driving away, Alex's mom looked back and forth from the road to Alex's face, and Alex felt self-conscious.

There was a long pause of silence between the two before Alex's mom spoke first, "… Did you manage to lay a good one on the other girl?"

Alex's eyes shot wide open as she looked over at her mom, and her mom laughed placing two fingers beside her cut lip.

"Yeah," Alex said, "Mom… they broke my glasses…"

There was a pause, and Alex spoke again, "Im sorry, mom…"

"Oh baby, I know," her mom simply stated, reaching out to grip her daughter's hand tightly.

"So what happened, hon?" she asked, and Alex looked out the window before starting to talk.

"There's a girl at school who's been bugging me and pushing me around," Alex explained, "Today she forced me out into the grounds, took my glasses from me and threw them on the ground. Her friends and her threw me around, and I couldn't see a thing and I was confused."

"I was upset and she kept making fun of me because you work all the time, and she calls me Pigsty because I don't get new things like she does."

"She makes fun of me because im not like them, and im not cool," Alex felt as if everything was spilling out of her and she couldn't stop blabbing on.

"They wouldn't stop, so I didn't have any other choice…"

As her mom pulled up into their apartment driveway and parked the car, she turned to face her daughter, and the stern look on her face made Alex's face drop.

"I'm proud of you, Alexandra," she replied, and Alex looked up at her again with a shocked look on her face, "I don't want you to make a habit out of this, but baby-doll, I don't ever EVER want to see you back down to anyone who puts you down."

"Now I want you to go upstairs and clean the house, and we'll talk more about this after I get off work in a few hours. You lock the door behind you," she explained, and Alex nodded her head obediently.

As Alex climbed out of the car, her mom beckoned her to lean in for a kiss, and she placed a kiss on her daughter's cheek before looking Alex in the eyes and said, "You are cool. Always fight for yourself, because you are the only person looking out for you."

"Well, asides from me, obviously," her mom corrected, and Alex smiled at her, "Don't ever let someone walk all over you, you show 'em who's boss!"

Alex nodded and waved at her mom before closing the car door, and waved at her mom from the steps of their apartment. Her mom had taught her many things in her life, and Alex smiled as she realized she probably wouldn't ever be harassed again by Jessica Wedge, or anyone else for that matter.


End file.
